Mr. Speaker, today the leader of Her Majesty's opposition and some members of his caucus have sullied my reputation by alluding that I am anti-American. On October 30 the Ottawa Citizen printed a clarification on an error it made. I would like to read that in the House for the record:
One hopes that in a democracy such as Canada, every individual, elected representative or not, has a right to a personal view on various issues. Surely, those viewpoints do not always have to mirror those held by other individuals--or foreign governments, for that matter. Being branded anti-American because one's beliefs and values are different from say, the foreign policy of the United States or that nation's current leadership is ludicrous. My views on the Iraq war itself would probably not differ from those of the almost three-quarters of Canadians who believe Canada made the right decision not to take part in the invasion of Iraq in the first place. Would it then be correct to say that, to some, every one of those Canadians is anti-American? I do not think so. As a Muslim woman, the first ever elected to the House of Commons, I do indeed adhere to basic beliefs found in the Koran--tolerance, peace, diversity, pluralism and respect for life. That is why I joined former party leaders Stockwell Day and Alexa McDonough this week in criticizing--